Carmine Marceno

When Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno won the Republican primary on Aug. 18, 2020, he celebrated in a Bonita Springs hotel suite, where close colleagues and friends stood in a circle around the room as he addressed each one. Among those in the circle were fellow sheriff’s office employees like Capt. Chris Lalor, whom he called “heaven sent,” and John Holloway, who would later become his undersheriff and whom he dubbed the “brains of the operation.” But saved for the end was someone Marceno said came from “a different place,” his closest friend, 56-year-old Ken Romano, a Bronx and New Jersey-raised jeweler with both the look and voice of a backroom character on "The Sopranos."

A Tampa political consultant connected to Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said the county's top cop isn't part of a "draft Marceno" for Congress effort.

After a pivotal update in a yearlong investigation, a small but committed group said they gathered on the corner in front of the sheriff’s office to make sure the conversation continues.

The FBI and U.S. U.S. Attorney's Office said this week that their case against Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno has been closed. A letter sent Monday to an attorney representing Marceno referenced a Nov. 17 date and confirmed the closure. The letter, to Attorney Donald Day, said the decision was based on “information presently known to the government.”

Bonita Springs jeweler Ken Romano, a key witness in the federal investigation of Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno, stares into the camera and addresses an audience of one about rumors circulating that the corruption case against Marceno is going to be killed by the Trump Administration.In the video, Romano, whom Marceno once called his “most loyal friend,” singles out trash mogul Anthony Lomangino – a large campaign donor to both the sheriff and President Donald Trump – and U.S. Attorney General Palm Bondi.

A video, which can be seen here, shows Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno driving south on six-lane South Tamiami Trail in a black Lamborghini Huracan convertible with the top down on a sunny day in Estero. Shooting the video is Marceno’s former friend, Bonita Springs jeweler Ken Romano, who drives in the lane to the right of the sheriff in the same direction. A brief race begins at Romano’s prompting.

When Lee County Undersheriff John Holloway’s daughter Morgan and her fiance Joe Trubilla posted a wedding registry on October 21, 2022, they appealed to friends and relatives for spa dates, a cruise, and other presents before their March 2023 wedding.But it was her father’s law enforcement agency that provided perhaps the biggest gift of all: a $5,000-per-month Lee County Sheriff’s Office consulting contract for Trubilla to run a youth boxing program.

As he faces a federal corruption investigation and also floats a potential run for Congress, the last thing Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno needs to do is upset his supposed allies in the Republican Party.But that may happen as a result of the surfacing of insulting and profanity-riddled audio recordings of Marceno talking about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and first lady Casey DeSantis — as well as presidential daughter Ivanka Trump — obtained by the Florida Trident.

For Lee County Undersheriff John Holloway, the sheriff’s office is a family business.As if Holloway’s $280,000 public salary as second-in-command under embattled Sheriff Carmine Marceno weren’t enough, now his wife, lawyer Kathleen Holloway, has been added to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office payroll at $155,000 a year, bringing the couple’s total take from the agency to more than $430,000 annually, internal LCSO documents show.State ethics law forbids public officials like John Holloway from not only hiring relatives but also from advocating for relatives to be hired at their own agencies. The sheriff’s office maintains it wasn’t the undersheriff but Marceno himself who “recruited” Kathleen Holloway after an as yet unnamed outside law firm determined the hiring didn’t pose a legal issue for the undersheriff.

In the spring of 2023, Cape Coral resident Tammy King went to a doctor’s office in nearby St. James City, hoping to refill her prescriptions for medication to treat her ADHD. Instead she was roughed up by Lee County sheriff’s deputies and wrongfully forced into a mental facility, according to a federal lawsuit filed on her behalf.